How To Get A Lot Of Glimmer In Destiny

If you're playing Destiny right now, there's a good chance you're feeling kind of broke. That's because after the expansion, you're going to need a ton of in-game cash (aka glimmer) to purchase new versions of your prized exotic gear, and even more to re-upgrade everything.

There was a time when I never worried about money in Destiny. No longer. For the past week, I've found myself constantly running out of dough. This weekend I found Xur selling upgraded versions of my warlock helmet, the Suros Regime, and Ice Breaker, three popular and useful items that I'm betting a lot of people will want to upgrade. Trouble is, it costs almost 25k glimmer (the current cap) just to buy all three upgrades, and that's leaving off the thousands more it will cost to get those items leveled back up. Yes, it's kind of outrageous, and a shameless time-sink. Yet here we are.

So! You need glimmer. I need glimmer. We all need glimmer. How best to get it?

Well, first of all, you're going to want to remember to pop your consumable money-increasers every time you're starting a mission or entering an area where you know there'll be a concentrated amount of one type of enemy. I'd gotten into this habit about a week ago, and have only reinforced it this week — I've got a ton of each item (resupply codes, black wax idols, etc) so I've never come close to running out. (Update: Some people have mentioned that they're saving black wax idols, since those are now a currency unto themselves at the expansion's new vendor. That's probably wise. Maybe save those, at least until we have a better idea of how many would be smart to keep on hand.)

If you really need a few thousand glimmer and have time for some mindless farming, then, as Hauser once said, "Pack your things and go visit Mars!"

The Mars mission "The Exclusion Zone" provides a great way to get a lot of money fast. Anyone who's needed to do the Cabal majors/ultras bounty probably already knows this trick, but it's also good for getting money. It's been a known quantity for a while, but it's become newly relevant, given how much more expensive stuff in the game has become.

The short version is that you'll want to repeatedly take out the eight "yellow" Cabal Imperial Legionaries that drop early on in the Exclusion Zone mission. This article describes my own particular way of doing it, but of course, you'll probably find a way that works best for you.

Here's what you do:

1. Fire up the "Exclusion Zone" mission on Mars at at least level 18 difficulty. The Imperial Legionaries don't turn up on normal difficulty. I generally play on 22, since it's still easy enough but gets me a tad more XP for these guns I'm trying to re-level up.

2. Play up to the first battle, where Ghost trips the Cabal's defenses and the dropships come in. When the battle starts, pop a resupply code.

3. Ignore the red dudes in front, run around them to the left and take cover for a few seconds down in the entryway you went through earlier.

4. Every time Peter Dinklage says "I guess THAT was their fail-safe," laugh maniacally and respond, "Good one, Ghost!"

5. When you see two Imperial Legionaries appear, hop out and kill them.

6. Jump over the hill and take out the three Legionaries down at the bottom.

7. Head over to the bunker across the way, to the right side of where the big doors first opened, and take out three more Legionaries.

8. Walk back out to the middle, feel free to kill a few more cabal, but mostly just let them kill you. Their melee attacks are useful for this if you're high level, or you could just grenade yourself.

9. Repeat and profit.

Important final tip: Be sure to walk over the place where each yellow Cabal went down, because you'll often find some resupply codes or a network key, the latter of which can be traded in at the Cryptarch for an additional 200 glimmer. Both items look like tiny white pyramids when they drop (I don't know either), and can be easy to miss amid the glimmer-crumbs.

Obviously, this isn't the most fun way to play Destiny. But if you've found yourself wanting to quickly (or, "quickly," because everything in this game takes forever) return your exotic gear to glory, it's not a bad way to go. It's also fairly mindless, and makes for pretty good second-screen grinding while you watch TV or catch up on Serial or whatever.

As to whether Destiny should have required all this re-grinding when we've already put so much work into levelling up our gear? That's a question for another day. For now, we are where we are, and if you want to get your stuff dialed back in, you're gonna have to pay to do it.

I hope this is helpful, and if you have any other good glimmer-farming tricks, that you'll share them in the comments below.

Comments

APWarthog Guest

Feb 25, 2015, 4:10pm

This was an amazing tutorial thanks dude. Already got a ton of glimmer.

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